BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."